“Good evening. Do not attempt to adjust your radio, there is nothing wrong. We have taken control as to bring you this special show. We will return it to you as soon as you are grooving.”

More than a song, this is a manifesto, but it is a manifesto that makes you dance. George Clinton and his coterie of crazy funkateers had been creating slabs of unique rock and funk over the previous 10 years but it reached an apogee with Mothership Connection, where every element clicked together to create a perfect whole.The opening track P. Funk (Wants To Get Funked Up) demonstrated just how far they had come. Like many people, I made the journey to P Funk via Prince and James Brown. But this was a different funk, a different groove. A groove you can still hear in most modern RnB and hip hop tracks nowadays, and in this one song it travelled around a range of sounds until the deepest funk fell out of the end.

The song starts with Clinton setting the scene. To my ears it is a continuation of Chocolate City. I said “manifesto” because it sounds like Clinton is telling us what will happen when he, and his band of extra-terrestrial brothers have control of society. Gently playing beneath the opening monologue are Bernie Worrell’s jazz tinged piano and swirls of synthesizer. The opening builds, bring in the “lollipop man” using Clinton's accelerated vocals (“Top of the Chocolate Milky Way, 500,000 kilowatts of P.Funk-power”) it swells to the moment that the whole band burst in. Led by Bootsy’s miraculous liquid bass playing. The chorus is more joyous, and more danceable, than anything I have ever heard. It floods me with soul when I hear it. Full of Clinton’s typical lyrical playfulness too:

Make my funk the P.FunkI want my funk uncutMake my funk the P.FunkI wants to get funked up.I want the bomb, I want the P.FunkI want my funk uncut.Make my funk the P.FunkI wants to get funked up

The next verse extols the virtues and medical benefits of funk (“Funk not only moves, it can re-move, dig?”) which just adds to the sheer pleasure of the track. As the chorus blasts back in I am hypnotised by the bass – it still sounds like nothing I have ever heard. Each chorus allows Bootsy more confidence and more room to manoeuvre around the funk. It’s a double chorus, introducing the great demand, “don’t step on my funk”.We then get to the incredible section where everything is turned down. Little flicks from Bernie’s keyboards. The odd lick from Garry Shider’s guitar. Hushed backing vocals run through the chorus again as Michael and Randy Brecker and Fred Wesley improvise their horn lines brining it all to a close. It gets smaller, quieter, breathless, finding a place to rest. Until we are hit with a final three note riff on the piano and Clinton yells, “Well, alright!” and the band jump right back in, funkier than ever before.

I track that cannot help but make me dance.

Can you imagine Doobiein' your funk?

“He’s got the memory of an elephant ... and the trophy cabinet of one too.”

I dunno, I mean, I'm aware my taste isn't exactly in line with yours, but this kind of thing is as alien to me as Van Halen. It just doesn't do anything for me, it doesn't sound funky to me, doesn't get anything toe-tapping, I simply don't get it

Like fast-moving clouds casting shadows against a hillside, the melody-loop shuddered with a sense of the sublime, the awful unknowable majesty of the world.

I bought a lot of funk comps back in the day. I always found they were a bit hit and miss, I loved the stuff that was coming from the JB end of things, that had that frantic, exciting groove full of interweaving instruments. The stuff, like this, that slowed things down and made the bass dominate were less attractive. I find it a little sluggish and lacking in variation if I'm honest. It's okay..but it doesn't really make me want to get on the good foot.

I should also add that it can be a bit dispiriting when you put a lot of effort into a post only to get a lukewarm reaction (at least initially, I'm sure others will love it). I did enjoy reading the post and am glad you made the effort K.

Yeah, I'm not knocking K here, the thread does exactly what I want it to do (point me at something unfamiliar, with enthusiasm), and it does it well. It turns out I'm really not the target audience for Parliament, surprisingly.

Like fast-moving clouds casting shadows against a hillside, the melody-loop shuddered with a sense of the sublime, the awful unknowable majesty of the world.